Cash to help WA pollies adjust

A select group of West Australians will soon receive financial support to help them adjust to their new lives on the outside.

That group is not the state’s prison population but its politicians, who will now receive up to three months’ pay upon leaving Parliament to help them re-skill and get back into the mainstream workforce.

The WA Salaries and Allowances Tribunal, which determines public sector pay, said yesterday the entitlement could be used to provide “financial counselling, outplacement services [and] retraining".

But many of WA’s politicians seem to be able to find post-Parliament work without much trouble.

Former premier
Alan Carpenter
heads corporate affairs for Wesfarmers, while former Liberal leader
Matt Birney
is chairman of mining services company Coretrack.

Similar resettlement entitlements already exist in Tasmania and the United Kingdom.

WA’s politicians have also been awarded a 4.3 per cent pay rise effective from September 1 this year, taking their base salary to $140,311. This puts the states’ representatives just $99 behind politicians in NSW and Queensland as the highest paid state members. Federal politicians receive base pay of $140,910 a year, according to the tribunal.

UnionsWA secretary
Simone McGurk
said she had no problem with the state’s politicians getting a fair pay rise.